Moonstone Books’ Phases of the Moon #1 Domino Lady/The Spider trade paperback will ship to comic shops on January 11, 2013. Written by Steven L. Frank, Phases of the Moon #1 Domino Lady/The Spider features art by Remy Mokhtar and Bill McKay.
About Phases of the Moon #1 Domino Lady/The Spider: A story arc so encompassing, it spans three flip comics, six Moonstone titles and several decades! A serial killer is terrorizing the city, but while The Spider investigates, all clues lead to his involvement and Domino Lady plans to stop him in his tracks. All is not as it seems, as the killer operates with equipment not of this time!
Learn more about Domino Lady here. Learn more about The Spider here. Learn more about Phases of the Moon here.
Moonstone Books‘ Kolchak: The Night Stalker and Honey West One Shot will ship to comic shops on January 11, 2013. Written by Janet L. Hetherington, the Kolchak/Honey West One Shot features art by Ronn Sutton with cover art by Malcolm Mclinton & Various.
About Kolchak/Honey West: Two top-tier investigators in one titanic team up! High heels and Hedonism! Young cub reporter Carl Kolchak falls into an ongoing investigation with Honey West, who is undercover at a gentlemen’s club! Disappearing women are the main course, and as the violence escalates and the case gets out of control, both our heroes must fight to stay alive!
Learn more about Kolchak: The Night Stalker here. Learn more about Honey West here.
The Airboy & Airfighters trade paperback collection, “Dangerous Liaisons” will be shipping to comic shops on January 11, 2013 from Moonstone Books. The $19.95 cover-priced trade is written by Chuck Dixon and Tom DeFalco, with art by Lito Fernandez, Oscar Celestini, and a cover by Tom Grindberg.
The first-ever Airboy collection! This volume collects the Airboy 1942 Special, the two issues of the Airfighters, plus a re-mastered “Air Vixens”, and an all-new team-up of all the Airfighters! Airboy’s first meeting with Valkyrie! The female Airfighters on their own! World War II action and adventure mixed with aerial derring-do!
All Pulp has learned that a new CALL OF CTHULHU adventure game, called THE DARKNESS WITHIN is currently in production in Spain. A sneak peek of the art has been released. Keep watching this space for more details as they become available.
Mary and Bryan Talbot’s Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes has won the Costa Book Awards biography of the year. They won the £5,000 biography prize for a book that interweaves the true and tragic story of James Joyce’s daughter Lucia with Mary’s own troubled relationship with her father, the eminent Joycean scholar James S. Atherton.
The Talbots have known of the win for several weeks. “It has been really hard keeping quiet about it,” said Mary. “We were astonished. Just being shortlisted was amazing and hearing we’d won the category was stunning. We’re delighted of course, both personally – it’s the first story I’ve had published – but also for the medium, I can’t believe a graphic novel has won.”
It is not the first graphic work to win a major literary prize – Art Spiegelman’s Maus won a Pulitzer in 1992 and Chris Ware won the Guardian first book prize in 2001 for Jimmy Corrigan: the Smartest Kid on Earth – but the Costa award is still a significant moment for the graphic medium.
“It is a good thing for graphic novels as a whole,” said Bryan Talbot whose prodigious output includes The Adventures of Luther Arkwright and Alice in Sunderland as well as strips for Judge Dredd and Batman. “Graphic novels are becoming increasingly accepted as a legitimate art form.”
The last graphic novel spike came about 25 years ago with the popularity of books such as The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen and Maus. The problem then, said Talbot, was that there were not enough books to feed this. “By the time you’d read a dozen or so of the best titles, there wasn’t enough left to keep this nascent interest going. Since then, there has been an increasing number of graphic novels published and now we have this whole canon of quality work.
“We are living in the golden age of graphic novels. There are more and better comics being drawn today than ever in the history of the medium and there’s such a range of styles of artwork, of genre and of subject matter.”
Judges called Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes “a beautifully crafted” work “which crosses the boundaries between literature and the graphic genre with extraordinary effect”.
Continuing its serialization of Tommy Hancock’s THE ADVENTURES OF NICHOLAS SAINT featuring Santa Claus and company viewed through a Pulpy prism, Pro Se Productions proudly presents Day 4 of this novella, featuring stunning art work by David L. Russell at http://pulpmachine.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-adventures-of-nicholas-saint-day-4.html! And remember, catch up on all previous chapters at http://pulpmachine.blogspot.com/p/the-adventures-of-nicholas-saint-free.html
The first issue of Dynamite Entertainment’s Sherlock Holmes: Liverpool Demon series arrives in comic shop today, December 12th. Written by Leah Moore, John Reppion with art by Matt Triano, Sherlock Holmes: Liverpool Demon is a 5 issue mini series.
About Sherlock Holmes: Liverpool Demon– Sherlock Holmes is busy doing what he does best, solving a case of far-reaching international notoriety. It has landed him at the Port of Liverpool, a bustling hub of commerce both legitimate and illicit. As that chapter closes, ours begins. They head to Lime Street Station, to catch a fast steam locomotive home to London and Baker Street, when violent weather keeps The Great Detective and Watson in Britain’s second city a while longer. Long enough to encounter a monster, discover the Liverpool underworld, and to become embroiled in one of his strangest cases yet.
Pro Se Productions has released the cover art by George Sellas for their upcoming release, Gravedigger. Written by New Pulp Author, Barry Reese, look for Gravedigger from Pro Se in 2013!
Plus, take a peek at this illustration of Gravedigger villain, Thanatos by artist Will Meugniot.
It’s Friday night and I’m standing on the crowded floor of a packed concert with friends when suddenly, it hits me: the perfect little plot point to tie together two parts of the first storyline for the new comic I’m working on. Naturally I immediately have to make some notes before I forget the idea. Five minutes later I’m back to the show, but kind of wishing I could be in two places at once so I could enjoy the rest of the show and be working on the new idea at the same time. Too bad reality doesn’t work that way.
Instead, we all have our own little difficulties and stumbling blocks to get over when it comes to creating art – like procrastination, or writer’s block, or fear of failure, or what-have-you – and I’d just been hit by one of mine, which is definitely distraction. Or, to put a more positive spin on it, the way my brain seems to like multitasking all the time. Sometimes it can be a good thing – like when I haven’t worked on a story in a bit and suddenly an idea comes to me out of nowhere. But other times, the distractions come at all the wrong times, like when I’m in the middle of working on the story and something else comes along; or when I have a great idea but no good way to preserve it or to start working on it right away. (Thank goodness for the notepad-type apps on smartphones, at least, which have helped a little with that problem!)
Creating is a funny process. Sure, there are some universal fundamentals to it, but everyone does it differently. Some writers are prolific, while others take years to write one novel. Some comics artists want a detailed script from a writer, while others like a loose framework they can play with. Some people like to get feedback as they go; but others don’t want anyone else’s eyes on their work until they think it’s perfect.
No matter how different each person’s process may be, though, everyone has to face their own hurdles as they create, because, let’s face it – it’s not easy. Sure, sometimes it may feel easy – you’re barreling through a story or a page of art and everything is flowing out like it’s never going to stop; but then it does, or you get stuck on one paragraph or frame of artwork for a ridiculous amount of time; or you look up at your clock at three in the morning and wonder if everything you just made was terrible. Or maybe none of these things happen to you; but I guarantee something in your process feels like a struggle from time to time.
At times like that, I find it helps me to be painfully aware of my shortcomings, so that I can remind myself of ways to overcome them. The reminders may be deceptively simple – e.g.don’t get distracted; that other thing will still be there when you’ve run out of words to write about this idea; you need to stop doing everything else and get back to the story – but just by owning the flaws and actively calling my brain to attention to overcome them, I have a much easier time actually doing so.
I think this same concept can be applied all the way through the process – from the very beginnings of your creation through to the part where you’re hoping to share it with the world (presumably in a profitable way). And since all of us experience the process of creation and sharing that creation in different ways, I thought it would be neat to see what some successful folks in the comics industry might offer as their best advice for successful writing or making art; giving us a window into what these creators find most important to keep in mind throughout the process (or possibly what they’ve learned by overcoming their own challenges), and providing us with some helpful thoughts, reminders, or encouragements as we work on our own art.
Thanks to the handiness of Twitter, through which I solicited advice, these contributions are all coincidentally in the form of handy, bite-sized little mantras that we can memorize, put up on a Post-it somewhere, etc. as needed to help keep us all on track as we make good art amidst the busy whirlwind of life. So without further ado, here they are!
@VictorGischler: Know yourself. Look inward and identify in which direction your enthusiasm lies. Also coffee. Lots of coffee.
@GailSimone: No one looks back and says, “I wish I’d taken fewer chances.”
@Reilly_Brown: Have a clear goal in mind from the start. “Success” is if the audience gets your point.
@MikeSHenderson: Keep challenging your weaknesses, and never stop acting like a professional.
@AletheaKontis: My Best Advice = Shut Up & Write.
@FredVanLente: There can always be one more draft. Have fun. Be a good person before a good artist.
@Janet_K_Lee: Sit your butt in the chair is #1. #2 Be fearless. Always try to learn and try something new.
@PaoloMRivera: I always tell everyone to sculpt. As for writing, just make people care. That may not be advice, but that’s the goal.
@JimMcCann: Allow yourself to fail every once in a while. Then make it better. :)
@kabalounge (Georges Jeanty): Make sure you are telling the story and not just trying to show off your artistic skills.
@MOWheatley (Mark Wheatley): Write. Draw. Do it again. Do it a lot. Keep doing it. Do it some more. Then do it again.
@brubaker (Ed Brubaker): My advice would just be keep doing it. You can’t control success.
@BenMcCool: Work hard, often & with abundant passion. Also, resist urge to drunkenly hassle editors. [ESW note: This is very wise.]
@jpalmiotti (Jimmy Palmiotti): Don’t listen to others’ BS, and stay focused.
@DennisCalero: Write and draw as much as you can and take it seriously.
@SkottieYoung: Do it a lot then do it more after that. Then, you know, keeping doing it.
@jerhaun (Jeremy Haun): Honestly @skottieyoung has it right. It’s all about being the guy that just doesn’t quit.
@GeneHa: @skottieyoung Exactly. Dave Sim said everyone has approximately 10K bad drawings in them. Keep drawing until most are outta your system. Also look for people who draw things differently than you do. Why does it still work, or even work better?
@PatrickZircher: Marry money. [ESW note: Hee!] Also, read any interview in which a mature comic pro talks about the work itself.
@JeffParker: Keep it short, be extremely clear to the extreme. Directness is harder than it looks.
@PaulTobin: Don’t stop. Choose what you love, not what you think will sell.
Also, study what you love. Understand why. Give your voice freedom.
@JoeKellyMOA: Do what you do every day. Intentionally do bad drafts so you get to good ones. Know when to take a nap. Go out for inspiration.
@LForLloyd (David Lloyd): There are really good books recommended by professionals here, but practice makes perfect, too… : )
@JamalIgle: Be yourself. Cliché, I know, but I’ve had more success when I listened to my gut. Your voice is precious; hone it, shape it, no one can take it away from you.
@DeanHaspiel: Live. Love. Make. Don’t hate. Be true. Show up. Commune. Commit. Deliver. Repeat.
@ColleenCoover: Read comics from before you were born. Don’t keep trying to redo stuff if it’s not perfect. Learn from mistakes and move on.
@FrankTieri: Also, get used to hearing “no” a lot. Even after you break in.
Excellent words of advice from great creators, all of whom share their work and wisdom on Twitter (so I’ve provided their usernames in case anyone is wondering where to follow them). I hope you all find them as helpful as I do!
Thank you to everyone who contributed to this column, and until next time, Servo Lectio!
What better book to review following our look at a Modesty Blaise strip collection then one that uses the 1950s anti-comic book witch hunt as its thinly disguised narrative skeleton. “Seduction of the Innocent,” is the third in a series starring former stripper and newspaper syndicate owner, Maggie Starr and her World War II veteran stepson, Jack Starr. Both appeared in two earlier comics themed mysteries, “A Killing in Comics,” 2007 and “Strip for Murder,” 2008. Now Collins wraps up the trilogy with a look at the events that nearly destroyed the American comics industry via the publication of the original, “Seduction of the Innocent,” by Dr. Fredric Wertham.
For the uninitiated, Wertham (March 20,1895 – November 18, 1981) was a German born American psychiatrist who made a name for himself by denouncing comics books as a corrupting influence on the children of that era. Targeting such publishers as E.C. Comics, he posited the theory that the crime, sex and violence depicted in those comics were the principle cause of delinquency among juvenile boys. Of course he failed to point out that the titles he singled out were clearly intended for an adult audience though no such labeling existed at the time. His best known book was “Seduction of the Innocent,” and his criticisms of comic books launched a U.S. Congressional inquiry into the industry and the creation of the Comics Code.
Of course the book is a sham using only the most gruesome examples of graphic art to prove a theory that was never corroborated with traditional scientific sampling. But the public, already molded by McCarthyism was only too eager to start comic book burning events in their noble defense of America’s naïve youth.
Author Collins has no difficult task in imagining a scenario in which the hated fictional doctor is murdered and then he lines up a half dozen very plausible suspects, each based loosely on past comic industry personalities from publishers to writers and artists. And therein lies the fun of this tale for any diehard comic book fan; guessing who it is Collins is rifting off of as Jack Starr investigates. As ever, Collins plays fair and the clues are laid out within the context of the story for all to see and interpret, mystery fans; the challenge being can we solve it before Jack and Maggie do?
This new “Seduction of the Innocent,” is by far a whole lot more entertaining than its predecessors and has the distinction of being Hard Case Crime’s first ever illustrated novel. Through out the book there are wonderful spot illustrations provided by the super talented Terry Beatty; all done in the marvelous retro golden age style of art. They add a really nice visual element to what is already a fun read. It is hoped that Collins’ legion of fans will demand yet more of these delicious murder mysteries starring Maggie & Jack Starr. In a literary environment overly saturated with dark, somber and depressing cautionary tales these are truly a breath of fresh air.
Mary and Bryan Talbot’s 
